Creating my rehearsal dinner dress out of my mom's wedding dress

One of the best experiences from planning our wedding last year (wow, feels SO weird to say that!) was the creation of my rehearsal dinner dress.Last winter, my mom and I opened her preserved wedding dress from when she married my dad. My parents are divorced, but it was really special to see her "dress". I put it in quotations because it really is a wedding suit with a long, high-waisted skirt, blouse, & peplum jacket. We also found their wedding invitation looking through photos (in an album of course), which was so fun! Here are some photos of my mom wearing the dress!

The dress was in great shape despite being in a box for ~30 years! The skirt had a lot of fabric and had a high/low shape that is on trend today, so we decided to work with the skirt to create a dress.

I had a few ideas in mind and found this photo/dress which served as the main inspiration.

We knew just the woman to help us create the dress. Nancy of Maggie Flood is a well-known dressmaker in the Greater Boston area and has been in business for many, many years creating wedding dresses.

We first visited her in May 2016 and she got our vision immediately. She also suggested reworking the peplum jacket to fit me. Nancy said the condition of the fabrics, and the fabric itself, would be great to manipulate. I went to 8 fittings(!!) and her meticulous work & attention to detail made the dress just what my mom & I envisioned. Looking back I wish I had taken more photos of the process but at the time scraps of material didn't interest me enough, I guess. Here are a couple shots of the dress & jacket at one of the last fittings.

I picked the dress up the week leading up to the wedding and the weather the night of our rehearsal dinner was perfect for wearing the jacket too.